Do you hit this child at home? If so I would stop immediately. Then you need to be very firm in believing that children go through stages - each of us are individual personalities. It may not be the fault of the child - the problem could be with the teacher's method of communicating with a strong willed child. In these situations we always blame the child; but often are not in the classroom to see what the teacher gets up to - more importantly, time out is not a conept that a three year old understands. What is the child actually doing to get time out? What happened just before it? Is the child been picked on by another child (yes I am talking about toddlers - you had better believe it!) and responding the only way known. Do not expect toddlers to have the communcation skills of adults. If you do not work and can make it up to the school, and the school allows it - I would arrange to 'covertly' observe from some spot in the classroom to discover what is really going on.